Redbird, a modern reverse proxy for node

The latest version, 8.0 of Redbird got released last month. It is a modern reverse proxy for node. Redbird comes with built in Cluster, HTTP2, LetsEncrypt and Docker support which helps in the handling of load balancing, dynamic virtual hosts, proxying web sockets and SSL encryption. It comes with a complete library for building dynamic reverse proxies with the speed and robustness of http-proxy.It is a light-weight package that includes everything that is needed for easy reverse routing of applications. It is useful for routing applications from different domains in one single host. It is also used for easy handling of SSL.

What’s new in Redbird?

Support for HTTP2: One can now enable HTTP2 easily by setting the HTTP2 flag to true. Note: HTTP2 requires SSL/TLS certificates.

Support for LetsEncrypt: Redbird now supports automatic generation of SSL certificates using LetsEncrypt. While using LetsEncrypt, the obtained certificates will be copied to the specific path on disk. One should take the backup, or save them.

Features

It provides flexible and easy routing

It also supports websockets

The users can experience seamless SSL Support. It also, automatically redirects the user from HTTP to HTTPS

It enables automatic TLS certificates generation and renewal

It supports load balancing after following a round-robin algorithm

It helps in registering and unregistering routes programmatically without restart which allows zero downtime deployments

It helps in the automatic registration of running containers by enabling docker support.

It uses node-etcd to create proxy records automatically from an etcd cluster.

Cluster Support in Redbird

Redbird supports automatic generation of node cluster. To use the cluster support feature one needs to specify the number of processes that one wants it to use. Redbird automatically restarts any thread that crashes and hence increases reliability.

If one needs NTLM support, Redbird adds the required header handler. This then registers a response handler. This handler makes sure that the NTLM auth header is properly split into two entries from http-proxy.

Custom resolvers in Redbird

Redbird comes with custom resolvers that helps one to decide how the proxy server handles the request. Custom resolvers help in path-based routing, headers based routing and wildcard domain routing.